Presenting the Issue: The Lived Canons: A Dedication for James A. Sanders

Abstract

Viewed as a whole, the works of James A. Sanders form a kaleidoscope of moving pieces aligning to form harmonious patterns. Focusing on canon, or fixity, may be a counterpoint in Sanders’ to fluidity in the shaping and use of the biblical canon within the Jewish-Christian-Muslim living traditions, a core of stories with a range of meanings that somehow adhere while always being in motion.

I find it curious that Sanders focuses on canonical criticism as if the fact of a fixed canon were the core belief in his biblical scholarship. Brevard Childs comes to the point of canon through a process, not unlike Sanders, but for Childs the canon is the end product. For Sanders it is the canonical process that shapes the meaning of the canon. Canonical stories endure while applications and intertextual developments continue in flux for the vitality of the canonical community.

Sanders’ reading of the Psalms Scroll from Qumran (11Q5) may serve as one focal point. When Sanders painstakingly opened the scroll dating back two thousand years, he discovered a set of psalms many of which are familiar but some newly revealed in the ancient manuscript hidden in the Judean wilderness sight unseen since Roman times. The question was how to understand the collection of these psalms within the Qumran's Davidic eschatological canon.

David Davage reflects on this discovery in “Canon of Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Revisiting the Qumran Psalms Hypothesis.” Davage argues that the identification of a canon of psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as suggested by Sanders, when combined with the notion of canon ecologies developed by Terje Stordalen, encompasses the entire network of canonical relations: the canonical body, the canonical community, and the canonical commentary.

The expression of women celebrating with timbrels and dances from the biblical story of Miriam, Craig A. Evans proposes, had contemporary application for the Qumran community. In 4Q285 fragment 7, when the eschatological Branch of David defeats the Kittim (the Roman army) and puts to death the king of the Kittim (the Roman emperor), the women of Israel beat timbrels and dance even as Miriam and the women of Israel did in Exodus 15. Miriam's story becomes absorbed with the Qumran canon.

William Yarchin argues in “The Book of Daniel as Witness to the Pluriform Bible” that in Daniel, the meaning of the biblical book flows not only from its semantic content but also through the various compositional configurations given to it during antiquity. Yarchin concludes, “the finding is consistent with a need for the sort of textuality and compositionally plurifom Bible edition articulated by James Sanders.”

In “Jewish Law in the Gospels in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Lawrence H. Schiffman cites a number of specific examples of halakhic (Jewish legal) matters discussed in the New Testament that are also dealt with in the Dead Sea Scrolls. By comparing and contrasting the rulings of these two traditions with the Pharisaic view, he shows that the Jewish legal views in the Gospels are for the most part a more lenient view than that of the Pharisees, while those of the Dead Sea Scrolls represent a stricter view. This contrast between the Christian and the Dead Sea communities reflects the range of interpretations that existed within communities subscribing to the biblical canon.

Robert Gnuse, in “Scripture in Context: James A. Sanders’ Contributions to Biblical Studies,” reviews the two-volume reprints of Sanders’ publications through the years, Scripture in Its Historical Context. Vol 1: Text, Canon, and Qumran and Scripture in its Historical Contexts; vol. II: Exegesis, Hermeneutics, and Theology (edited by Craig A. Evans), 2018, 2019. Multivalence of the Texts is a theme that Gnuse focuses on: “As biblical oral traditions and later written texts were transmitted over the years, the texts would change in the hands of scribal editors so that a new and meaningful message could be spoken to each subsequent generation.” Another is Monotheizing in the Texts: “An overarching theological theme throughout the canon, says Sanders, is the monotheizing tendency. The literature of the biblical canon is not consistently monotheistic, for it uses too much of the literature, imagery, and ideology of the polytheistic ancient Near East. But it consistently monotheizes this borrowed literature and imagery, and there is an overall trajectory that moves, if not in consistent evolutionary fashion, in a general way to affirm the oneness of God.”

Gnuse concludes: “James A. Sanders was a great scholar, a giant in our midst, and these two volumes are a testimony not only to the vast range of his scholarship but also to his perceptive depth on so many issues. He has provided us with many scholarly paradigms and ways of viewing scripture that will last for many years.”

James A. Sanders died on October 1, 2020 at the age of 92. He served as an associate editor of Biblical Theology Bulletin for thirty-four years, regularly reviewing manuscript submissions and offering guidance for acceptance or revision. The editors of BTB fondly dedicate this issue of Biblical Theology Bulletin to our esteemed mentor, colleague, and friend.

Among his numerous publications in BTB, Sanders’ article “Credo in Unum Deum: A Challenge” (BTB 39 [2009]: 204–13) stands out. Sanders writes:

A canon is both fixed and dynamic. The interpretive dynamics of the biblical canon did not cease when the several faith communities closed their canon. Each community claims that its canon is normative for its communal life. Yet, the canonical process has in fact continued in all faith communities: Jewish, Christian and Muslim. Interpretations of it reflect the times and cultures in which it is cited. Central to the canon is its evolving understanding of God. Though all three religions claim to be monotheistic, each has stalled for centuries at claiming that only its particular view of God is correct. It is time to move forward toward a fuller understanding of what believing in the One God of All means today.